Revenge
by ErieDragon
Summary: The Fate-Altered Military Front, or what is left of the ruined Zaibach empire, has designed new weapons with incredibly destructive capabilities. The Fanelian king has vanished, and Hitomi finds the world she came to love has drastically changed.
1. Earthling Life

**Revenge**

**Chapter One: Earthling Life**

Hitomi had always had a hard time paying attention. In high school, she was always distracted in classes; her mind had often wandered to track, to Amano, to crossing that eleven-second mark. In college she could never stop thinking about Gaea. She drew the faces of her friends on her notes. She always chose a seat close to the window so that she could gaze out at the sky and imagine another planet floating there: a planet that looked very much like Earth.

She had barely missed graduating with honors. Despite the state of the economy, she earned a entry-level position editing short stories and novels for a large publishing firm. She didn't like to be alone, and unlike many of her peers, chose to share an apartment with Yukari, her closest high school friend. Yukari was doing secretary work in the same city, and they decided living alone would be too sad.

Yukari was the only person whom Hitomi had told about her travels. Yukari had listened to her whole story, and sat quietly for some minutes afterwards. She said to Hitomi, "If I didn't have this nagging feeling like, 'I know that from somewhere! It sounds so familiar!' I might not believe you. But some part of me remembers you disappearing, even though we know that it didn't happen. Part of me remembers how worried I was about you, after that dragon almost killed us—and then you were went up in a bright column of light. But I know that none of it happened." It was a puzzling mystery. No one else had any memory except Hitomi; Yukari just had a faint inkling of what had occurred that night on the race track. She hadn't even bothered to tell Amano, and then he went away for the rest of high school.

Hitomi was staring at the company letterhead on her notepad when the lead editor coughed in her direction. Startled, she almost tipped her chair. He was giving her a stern look. "Kanzaki, we need you to be here with us. This is your book we're talking about. We need to get the preliminary edits to the author, so he can move forward." She missed track. She missed the days when she didn't have to worry about her performance affecting her cash flow.

"Yes, sir." She jotted something down on her notepad to look busy, but what she wrote was nothing but gibberish. "I'm sorry sir, I'll have my section finished this afternoon." Her cheeks were hot, and she wondered if anyone else in the room noticed. The other two editing assistants looked grateful that they weren't caught spacing out.

The lead editor's expression transformed into a wide, fake smile. "Great! Let's move on, then." There was a hint of threat in his voice: pay attention, or you won't be getting that promotion at the end of the year.

Hitomi thought less and less about Gaea with every month that passed. She was almost twenty-three, and Yukari had just gotten engaged. Soon, she would be moving out. Hitomi could either find a new roommate, which was unlikely in a society of people that forced themselves to live alone, or move to a new place where she could afford the rent by herself. That promotion wasn't coming soon enough, if it was coming at all.

In the evenings, Hitomi went to the obligatory after-work pow-wows at the nearby bar and restaurant. It was expensive, and she didn't even like to drink very much, but she knew she had to make a good impression on the second-in-command to move up in the world. She could only go running on the weekends now, because she rarely got home before eight or nine every night of the week. She made those days count, and occasionally snuck into the nearby middle school to practice her dash on the track.

The assistant editor, Eri, reminded Hitomi of Millerna: a hard-working woman with unrealistic ideals. She was beautiful and a little haughty, but she had a good heart. Having drinks with Eri and discussing her desire to change the world was painfully nostalgic. Hitomi often went home afterwards and spent hours gazing at the pure white feather, encased in glass, that sat on the end of her desk. She kept her tarot cards hidden away, and rarely looked at them out of fear.

On a cool evening in November, one month after a peculiar meteor storm, Hitomi and Yukari were getting ready for a miniature track reunion. A couple of students from their year had kept in touch, and the old high school had agreed to host a small party for them. It was a long way to go for the two women, so a friend offered up her couch and floor so that they wouldn't have to go home until the next day. It was a Friday, so Hitomi had happily refused to go with her coworkers to the bar.

They rented a car, packed up their old track uniforms, and went on their merry way. Hitomi and Yukari talked about everything relating to high school: how only one senior boy had heard from Amano after he left; how their coach once told Hitomi that if she could just push off the blocks rather than walking off of them, she might be a Japanese running star; how things had inexplicably changed after Hitomi came back from Gaea, even though it seemed like nothing at all unusual had happened. Yukari often had to reassure her that it hadn't been a dream, even though she had no proof to the contrary.

Nine other members of the track team their junior year showed up. Their coach had retired not long after they graduated, but she came anyway. They took out the blocks and a couple of the girls had a race, which ended with everyone laughing uncontrollably at their incredible fifteen second runs. The boys went next, and were far less embarrassing, the fastest of them scoring a twelve.

"Hitomi!" one of the other girls called. "You were the best in our year, you should go next!" Everyone cracked up at the idea. Yuusuke, who had won the last race, suggested they go head-to-head and see who had kept in shape the best over the years. It was obvious that they were the only two who still exercised regularly.

"All right," she agreed. "But if I lose, which I inevitably will, none of you are allowed to make fun of me."

"Aww!" Yukari cried. "That's the best part!"

Thankfully, Hitomi's shorts still fit, because she had forgotten to bring any other workout clothes. When she was ready, her old classmates lined up the two blocks and held up their stopwatches.

She couldn't help thinking how surreal the track looked then: the same as it had always been, with big lampposts all around the edge, a wide set of bleachers, and an astro-turf field in the middle. She remembered sitting at the top of the bleachers and cheering her friends on. Of course, she remembered that night when a pillar of light dropped Van on the track in front of her and she plowed into him, beginning the adventure that changed her entire life.

Yukari was standing at the finish line, giving her the thumbs-up.

"Ready?" Hitomi nodded her head, staring intently down the track. "One, two, three, go!"

It didn't feel much different than practicing. She shot off the blocks and felt the familiar shock in her thighs. Her muscles throbbed with each long stride. She had a fleeting thought that she hadn't worn the best shoes for this kind of thing.

When she ran over the finish line, she finally realized that Yuusuke had long fallen behind. He crossed the end point after she had already bent over, her hands on her knees, inhaling deeply.

"Wow," Yukari breathed. "Barely under ten seconds." The others were whispering, amazed. Yuusuke came up beside her and patted her back, telling her, "You totally kicked my butt. I can't believe it. Amano would be so proud of you."

Hitomi laughed. Yukari joined in. Eventually, the entire group was cracking up, in disbelief that one of their number could actually run better now than she had in high school.

---

Hitomi gave Yukari the couch. "I'm going to be out for a little bit before I go to bed, and I don't want to step all over you." Her friend didn't mind getting the better spot. Yukari was already in bed, half-asleep by the time Hitomi left the house for a short walk.

Nighttime was sometimes the hardest, when she looked up at the moon and saw the faint glow of Gaea hovering behind it. She always wondered if it was just in her imagination: did I really go there? Did I meet all of those people? Did I witness one of the greatest wars in history? Did I really fall in love with Van Fanel, the king of a quiet country surrounded by dragons? It seemed like the silhouette was taunting her, not quite real, but not quite imagined—just like her journey there that had been so real, but became nothing except a long, strange dream.

Their friend lived on a quiet street not far from where Hitomi had grown up. The neighborhood was quiet; the houses were nicer than the one she had lived in throughout high school. The lampposts shed a soothing yellow light over the sidewalk. She heard a cat cry from a backyard, but she couldn't see it. They were further from the big city and the sky was clear, so the stars shone bright. One of them fell when she was looking up.

Hitomi walked until she found a park, and she sat on a bench under one of the streetlamps. It was a smallish park: there was a small grove of trees off to her right, and a pathway that crossed the grass, lined with little wood benches. It was past midnight so she didn't see a single other person, except…

She realized that somebody was coming across the street. Wondering what she would say if the person was a police officer, she quickly stood up so that she was properly lit. The person across the street immediately stopped moving.

"Um, hello?" Hitomi called, her voice cracking. There was no response, and the figure did not move. She no longer worried if it was a police officer, but a mugger, or something worse. "Hello, who's there?" She tried her best to be polite, hoping it might save her from an assault.

Finally, the shadow moved, coming over the corner and into the lamplight. He didn't look familiar at first, but Hitomi realized that he had simply cut his hair. Allen was dressed in somewhat average clothing: a button-up shirt, a brown jacket and slacks.

Her tongue stuck in her throat. Her imagination never tried to fool her, so she knew she couldn't be making him up. She closed her eyes, waited, and then opened them again; he was still there, watching her with a blank expression. "A-A-Allen," she managed.

"Hello, Hitomi," he replied.


	2. Evil Suggestion

**Revenge**

**Chapter Two: Evil Suggestion**

"_Hello, Hitomi," he replied. _

His voice was a little different: a little deeper, a little scratchier. He had always had a voice like an angel. He stepped towards her, from the other side of the street. She didn't move. The closer he came, the less he was lit by the streetlamps, until he came close enough that he was on the sidewalk beside her. Her heart pounded in her chest. She could feel the blood coursing hot through her face, and her hands trembled.

His hair was as blonde as ever, but cropped around his face. He had some small wrinkles on the edges of his eyes, and his brows looked more tense than she remembered. Before she could study him much further, he reached out two hands and grasped her shoulders.

"Hitomi," he said, "you have to come with me." Hitomi's mouth flopped open like a fish's. Allen shook her a little. When she failed to respond, he let her go and threw his hands up in the air. "Hitomi!"

His raised voice seemed to pluck her out of her stupor, and she started to breathe quickly. "Allen!" she cried. "Allen, what are you doing here? How are you here?" She fumbled with the words.

"Hitomi, I've been looking for you for weeks now." It was like a dream she might have had six years ago. "Hitomi, please, I need your help." He gasped a little. His eyes were wider now, and he looked a little frantic. She couldn't quite remember ever seeing him looking quite so terrorized.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped backwards and sat down on the bench. She offered him the seat next to her. "Allen," she said, "sit down. Tell me what's wrong." Allen looked almost frustrated with her, but instead obeyed. He was definitely older. He looked misplaced, unnatural, dressed like he was. The blue knight's uniform had suited him so well, made him appear so dignified, that he seemed reduced in casual, Earth attire.

His eyes seemed to soften, and his wrinkles fade a little. "Hitomi, things have gone wrong." It was obvious that she still didn't quite believe he was there, sitting beside her, so he was careful to speak slowly. "I've been living here… for a while," he said. "When I came here, I was at your, what do you call it, high school?" He looked exhausted. Hitomi noticed that his collared shirt was wrinkly and unwashed under the jacket. "I asked around about you, but no one seemed to know anything. Until tonight."

"Allen, how did you get here?" Hitomi asked.

"How do you think?" he answered with a long sigh. "The blue light."

"But, why?"

He seemed irritated, but not at her questions; he was struggling to put his sentences together. "You see," he began awkwardly, "After Zaibach was destroyed, there was a country of people who relied on the technological infrastructure. When it disappeared, the lives of these people had been changed by fate. Some of them, both willing volunteers and victims of the sorcerers, could no longer exist without the machine." He coughed. Hitomi wondered how he had been surviving here, imagining that someone must have been helping the handsome, charismatic man. He did seem worse for the wear.

"They started the Fate-Altered Military Front. The people of Zaibach were starving, and there was only so much Palas could do alone: Freid was destroyed, and Fanelia was trying desperately to rebuild." Hitomi could imagine such a thing. "Two years after you left, they launched their first attack.

"There were still plenty of scientists living in Zaibach after Dornkirk was removed. They started trying to rebuild the fate machine, but had little resources to do so. The Front took what military power they had left and began attacking energist mines, farms, anything where they could take resources to feed the people who had remained within the limits of the Zaibach empire. King Aston had intended to militarily absorb them, but found himself without enough troops." He looked at Hitomi. "They weren't a problem for myself, you see, until one month ago. They created a weapon that rained fire on all of Gaea."

Hitomi furrowed her brow. "Rained… fire?" She remembered the meteor storm.

"We were worried about you," Allen added. "We feared that Gaea wasn't the only planet struck by the attack."

"We weren't harmed," she replied quickly. "But we saw it. Our experts hadn't seen it coming—it was all over the news because nobody could explain it. Usually scientists know meteor showers are coming long before they do."

"The death toll is difficult to count. What I know is that many places in Gaea were destroyed, and people fled. The Fanelian castle was, for the second time, on fire. I heard of it from my men who had been in the area. Van has disappeared, and his people are lost." Hitomi was staring at him. Allen lowered his head so his hair hid his eyes from view. "They need their king. I was asked to find you, so that you might help us find Van."

Hitomi still couldn't be sure that anything she was seeing or hearing was even real. "The Front has special powers. Their generals are altered soldiers; their scientists are leagues ahead the rest of Gaea; and their guymelefs compare only to Escaflowne." Van wouldn't abandon his people. He had fought so hard for Fanelia, only to leave it when the enemy returned?

"He had to have been kidnapped," Hitomi told Allen. He looked surprised. "Van would not just disappear unless someone took him. But who could do that?"

Allen looked at her coldly and replied, "What if he did just leave?"

---

Hitomi wasn't sure what to do with Allen now that he was there, and they weren't instantly transported back to Gaea upon meeting. This, of course, was what she assumed would happen. When Hitomi was feeling cold and tired sitting on a park bench in the middle of the night, she finally suggested they return to her friend's house. She told Allen to stay quiet, and they could leave first thing in the morning for she and Yukari's apartment back in the city.

As they walked back to the house, Hitomi was forced to ask: "How have you been living here for so long? And where did you find those clothes?"

Allen looked down at his outfit and sighed. He was clearly dissatisfied with how undignified his situation had become. "I could not look for you at first because the people of the Mystic Moon speak a very perplexing language." As they passed under the streetlamps, they lit his face from above, making him look even older than before. "After a day or so, I was granted the power to communicate with them. I simply went to a house and asked if I might stay with them while I searched for my friend. The family assumed I was foreign.

"They insisted that I change my clothes and not carry a sword with me when I went outdoors." He shrugged his shoulders. "I told them I could repay them later." He gave Hitomi a meaningful look, and she sighed.

"So they live nearby, then?" Allen nodded his head. "I will go and sort this out tomorrow."

"And until then?"

"You can sleep in the car so you don't scare our friend. I can't imagine this family would appreciate you coming in at the wee hours of the morning." Allen shook his head. "The car it is."

The time between setting up Allen with a duffel bag for a pillow in the back seat of the rental car and climbing under the blankets inside evaporated. Hitomi kept pondering Allen's words: "What if he did just leave?" What would have had to happen for the loyal Van Fanel to abandon his people? Surely he could have retrieved Escaflowne from its resting place and at the very least, defended his country.

---

The next morning, Hitomi woke up before anyone in the house and went outside to check on Allen. He was sleeping with one arm up on the seat, the duffel bag tucked under his neck. He still had his shoes on. She went back inside to wake up Yukari and try to explain exactly what was going on.

Yukari yawned and batted away Hitomi's hand, then glanced at her watch. "God," she moaned, "it's only like, seven. We were up late drinking, doesn't even that knock you out for a little while?"

"Do you remember Allen?" Yukari gave Hitomi a confused look. "From… you know… that place?"

Yukari's eyes went wide, and she sat up. She spoke in a whisper. "What do you mean? What about him? Of course I remember."

Hitomi swallowed and told her, "He's here."

Yukari was silent. She got up off the couch and put on her day clothes and some shoes. "Show him to me."

Hitomi led her outside and Allen was already standing beside the car, trying without avail to flatten out his wrinkled shirt. When he saw them, he hastily put on his jacket and pulled the collar up around his neck. Yukari looked at him, then back at Hitomi.

"Well, he is blonde," she said quietly. "But I don't see the whole knight thing." Allen looked offended. "I mean…" Yukari paused. Hitomi sighed.

"Allen, shall we go settle your debt, and get your proper clothes back?" At this, the knight looked infinitely relieved. "Yukari, let's say goodbye to our host, and then I have to pay off the kind people who have been putting up a strange foreigner with only a vague promise of reward."

While the girl they stayed with was unhappy about being woken up so early, she said goodbye and wished them well. When they all got in the car, which Allen clearly found unnerving, he instructed Hitomi how to get to the house. The father was outside, watering some plants hanging above the front porch. When he saw Allen, he waved enthusiastically.

Hitomi and Allen went in the house, while Yukari waited in the car. When they returned, Hitomi was gazing forlornly into her empty wallet, while Allen was dressed completely as Hitomi remembered him. He suddenly looked more vibrant, and all of his wrinkles seemed to have vanished. His shoulders were straight and the handle of his sword glistened in the early morning sunlight.

"Oh my god," Yukari gasped. "You really are him."

"Madame," Allen replied, "I am pleased to make your acquaintance." He bowed, and lightly kissed the top of her hand. Hitomi rolled her eyes, but Yukari nearly swooned.

The ride home, Yukari asked him all kinds of questions. Allen was careful not to discuss why he had come; he kept the discussion narrowly confined to Gaean animals, culture, and language. "So, there really are dragons?"

"Of course," Allen replied. "If it weren't for dragons, nothing on Gaea would receive power, except with Levistones."

"Wow," said Yukari. She was sitting in the passenger seat, but still managed to gaze at him with half-lidded eyes.

They finally arrived at their apartment, and Yukari offered to take the car back to the rental company. "I'm sure you two have so much to talk about," Yukari twittered.

As soon as she was gone and they started up the stairs of the apartment building, Hitomi asked, "So the reason you came here is that you want me to find Van?" Allen nodded his head. "What makes you think I still can? Or that you can even go back, now that you're here?" She unlocked the front door, and they both went inside. She was suddenly very aware of how small and messy their apartment was, but Allen didn't seem to mind.

"I have faith that when the time is right, we'll be taken back."

Hitomi thought that any faith was too much faith in the unpredictable power that had once transported her willy-nilly all across Gaea. "I see." Allen looked at her intently. "What?"

"Aren't you going to pack?"

Allen was still handsome, there was no doubt about it. Neither did Hitomi forget that she had once been unquestionably infatuated with him. Of course, fresher in her heart was her much deeper feeling for Van: not only was he her friend, but had been her companion in battle. He had rescued her as many times, if not more times than she rescued him. In the end, he was the one who loved her. Allen had never felt anything for her more than a passing fancy.

If she was going back for anyone, it was going to be to rescue Van, not because good-looking, confident Allen had gone through so much to find her.


End file.
